


we're getting the band (back) together

by Arrowsbane



Series: Sumigakure Winter Wishes 2017 [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Pacific Rim AU, Sumigakure Winter Wishes 2017, Very AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 17:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrowsbane/pseuds/Arrowsbane
Summary: Winter Wish for Modernart2012“We’re getting the band back together!” Jiraiya crows exuberantly. Tsunade, of course, is just there to knock some heads together; and Orochimaru… Orochimaru hates them both. He’d rather being science-ing in his lab right about now.Prompt"Pacific Rim AU. Preference for MadaTobi, but I’m open to any pairing, romantic or otherwise. Doesn’t have to follow the movie, can follow the comics."





	we're getting the band (back) together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ModernArt2012](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernArt2012/gifts).



> I went very AU with this, but right now Idek bc I swapped prompts halfway through, and this is what my brain came up with.

After the shinobi villages formed, when the clans finally came together in order to stop the wars, the worst thing anybody really had to worry about was politics and conflicting missions…

And then… everything changed.

* * *

When the Zetsu first began attacking, it was the Samurai who came up with the concept for the Jaegar Project. It was a great idea, two people piloting a giant, fifty foot mechanical robot to combat the threat… until, of course, the Shinobi nations took one look at the machine and started to laugh.

The Project wasn’t scrapped – it couldn’t be scrapped, not with the panicked civilians’ screaming en masse at the politicians. Instead, it was made the public face of international defence.

Instead, the Parabatai Project was designed – which in turn spawned the Cerebus Program as the years passed; implants inserted directly into the spinal column and interfacing with the CNS and brainstem, wirelessly connected to partnered hubs.

The implants enabled the user to link-up with others, and essentially become one mind simultaneously piloting and co-ordinating multiple bodies. If used by an ordinary swordsman, it would be lethal… used by Ninja… well, that was just inspired.

And so began the evolution of the ninja villages – Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Madara paved the way, demonstrating the deadly efficiency of two compatible genii able to share a hive mind-set. The land of Fire was set ablaze in their attempt to wipe out the Zetsu, but even their combined might was not enough. 

Genin teams were put together for balance, but ninja were assessed again as Chunin, and often reassigned to different units in order to test flexibility and search out the best ‘fit’. Partners were usually set around the age of sixteen, once puberty had evened out – chakra helping to stabilise the mind and body ahead of civilian standards.

* * *

_When Sarutobi’s Genin team were slotted together, nobody had really expected much of them – well, they had expected them to become brilliant ninja… separately… in their own right… but nobody had foreseen the titans that they would be in the field._

_The implants stung at first, they always did – Jiraiya bitched, Orochimaru scowled… and Tsunade… Tsunade was smug, because the idiots had ignored the opportunity to learn the healing techniques she’d used on herself within five minutes of leaving the Cerebus Centre._

_Sarutobi shook his head and sighed, directing them to training ground twenty-three, and settling in to watch the no-doubt hilarious show that would be the three of them (re)learning to navigate while sharing headspace with minds that weren’t their own._

_“Ouch!”_

_“Out of the way!”_

_“Ow. Ow OW OW TSUNADE!”_

_“Mooorrrooon.”_

_Sarutobi found himself dropping the rice ball and hastily intervening as Orochimaru’s words began to slur together in the telling manner that threatened the destruction of the whole training ground… or the village being swamped in snakes. Again._

* * *

The Sannin weathered so many storms, so many encounters with the Zetsu over the years before the cracks begin to show.

Time isn’t kind, nor is life. Some grow close, some grow apart… and constant expectations of high success rates, expectations of perfection, of setting the bar, of succeeding in an impossible war…

Tsunade lost her brother and fiancée, Orochimaru’s humanity slipped further and further from his grip with every passing year, and Jiraiya buried years of pain and disappointment beneath a wide grin and creased-closed eyes.

And then the cracks met in the middle, and the team shattered at the seams.

The Sanin were no more.

* * *

Time ticks on, and the Zetsu keep coming.

New teams step up to the plate, nations rise and fall in the leaderboards for ‘have killed the most useless monsters’… and eventually the Hokage throws his hands in the air, sighs, and sends his ANBU out to drag Jiraya  _away_ from the Hot Springs and  _into_  his office – by the ear if necessary.

“Enough,” He tells the wayward brat – fifty years old or not, he’s a brat – “ _Enough._  This has gone on for long enough.”

Jiraiya, of course, scowls.

“ _I’m_  not the one who left,” He grumbles, crossing his arms and ducking his chin, the picture of an angry pre-teen. Sarutobi sighs and rubs the crease between his brows.

“No,” he replies, “you are not; but that doesn’t mean you can’t go after them.”

Jiraya, tellingly, doesn’t answer. He sits there in sullen silence for a long while, and then slinks out of the office. Sarutobi has a sinking feeling. This will not end well.

* * *

Tsunade is drinking in a bar when he finds her, flushed pink from the alcohol, and halfway to falling asleep on a bill she won’t ever pay.

“No,” she says before he can even open his mouth, before he’s even in her line of sight – like she knows what he’s there for – and she does, because she’s still got the implants, and he would never give his up.

“But–”

“ _No_.”

Jiraiya sighs, and flops down into a seat next to her, raising an arm to the bartender who nods and sets down a bottle of Sake and a cup in front of him.

“ _Kampai_ ,” he mutters in a subdued tone.

 _Fuck._  Now he remembers why he never chased after them before now.

* * *

The next morning dawns bright and clear – the sun is shining, the birds are singing… the local castle is exploding in a cloud of dust and rubble.

_The fuck?_

Jiraiya bolts upright, and groans, supressing the urge to drop back down into bed as the force of his hangover – and Tsunade’s, shit, how did he forget about  _that_  perk of the bond? – hits him smack in the cap of the skull, and his eyes feel like they’ve been burnt out of his head.

Goddammit, what  _was_  that?

He squints out against the morning glare, wrenching the window open and pushing off of the sill with practised ease, zoning in on the source of the noise.

Boom usually equals bad in his books.

And he’s right. He’s not the only one there though – Tsunade and her apprentice (Shizue? Torune? Shizune?) follows them, carrying a pig of all things.

Not only that, but looming out of the dust and snarling with frustration is–

“Orochimaru?” Jiraiya yelps. He hadn’t sensed the snake nin nearby. How had he not sensed the man when he’s lit up like a fucking chakra beacon?

“What did you  _do?”_  Tsunade screeches angrily, staring at was once a piece of local cultural history and is now a mass of stone and dirt.

“It wasn’t me,” Their wayward teammate snarls back at her; and as one, they turn to see a writing white mass melting into nothingness. But of course, where there’s one Zetsu, there’s dozens more.

“We’ll talk about this later,” She orders, ignoring Jiraiya’s whine of pain, and smashing a chakra-coated fist through the head of a Zetsu that had been trying to sneak up on her.

“Sure, “Orochimaru snipes backwards, “Sometime after the two of you have drunk your weight in sake again I suppose?”

“Please,” Tsunade snorts, kicking another Zetsu into a group, and the lot of them go down like bowling pins. “I’d need  _a_   _lot more_  than that to handle your crap.”

Jiraiya tunes them out, focusing on using their connection – something he hasn’t done in over ten years – to handle the situation, although the back of his brain feels the familiar to-and-fro of death threats and general snarking.

He’s missed this.

* * *

When it’s all over and done with, and they’re standing in the wreckage of the battlefield, Jiraiya lets his shoulders slump, and turns to his old friends with a grin on his face – a grin he’s not worn in a  _long_  time.

“That was fun,” Tsunade admits as they make their way down to the town. She’s going to need sake to get through the rest of they day.

“Yeah, it was.” Jiraiya agrees happily, and Orochimaru snorts. “Oh don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it.”

“I didn’t hate it…” Orochimaru acquiesces, stepping over a large chunk of stone and mortar.

“Aww, I love you too.” Jiraiya latches onto his teammate like a limpet on a rock.

“Get your hand off of me, Moron.” Orochimaru hisses, flipping his hair over his shoulder and trying to squirm out of Jiraiya’s grip.

“You’re both idiots.” Tsunade grumbles, shaking out her clothes.

“But we’re  _your_  idiots.” Jiraiya tells her cheerfully.

“You’re certainly  _something,”_ She grumbles, and then freezes as a thought passes through Jiraiya’s head.

“No,” She says.

“ _No_.” Orochimaru agrees with her.

It’s too late though, they both know he’s not going to let them go again.

“Don’t say it,” Tsunade groans, rubbing her aching temples and Orochimaru groans.

“We’re getting the band back together!” Jiraiya crows exuberantly. Tsunade, of course, is just there to knock some heads together; and Orochimaru… Orochimaru hates them both. He’d rather being science-ing in his lab right about now.


End file.
